Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Panel: Comey to testify Thursday
WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week, the committee announced Thursday.
Comey’s appearance before the committee has been in the works for some time, but an exact date and time had not previously been set. The committee said Comey will testify Thursday in a public setting starting at
10 a.m. and in a closed session after that starting at 1 p.m.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump fired Comey during an FBI investigation into whether the Trump presidential campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 U.S. election.
While the Trump administration said Comey was fired over how he handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation last year, the president has said the Russia investigation this year was on his mind when he dismissed Comey. FBI directors are appointed to 10-year terms to avoid any political influence.
Comey likely will not be able to testify about details of the ongoing investigation, which is now being led by a special counsel. However, he will be able to provide details about his firing and conversations he had with the president.
Comey wrote in private notes that Trump asked him to shut down the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Comey kept notes on a conversation he had with Trump in which Trump allegedly asked him for an affirmation of loyalty, people familiar with the documents have said.
The White House has denied those characterizations.
Comey has reached an understanding with the special counsel’s office about what he can and cannot make public, people familiar with the matter have said.
His appearance before the committee comes as the special counsel’s inquiry into Russian meddling in the election heats up. In recent weeks and months, a grand jury has issued subpoenas requesting records related to Flynn’s businesses. Also, investigators are now scrutinizing Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser, over meetings he had with Russians in December. The Senate panel also plans to hear at some point from Kushner.
On March 27, when his December meetings with Russians became publicly known, Kushner agreed to cooperate with the Senate inquiry. Since then, reports have surfaced of back-channel discussions between him and the Russians. His lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, has said Kushner still plans to cooperate.
Fueling speculation about a Trump-Russia connection, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year to help Trump’s presidential campaign.
While Putin continued to deny any state role, his comments to reporters in St. Petersburg were a departure from the Kremlin’s previous position: that Russia had played no role in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee last year and that, after Trump’s victory, his country had become the victim of anti-Russia hysteria from crestfallen Democrats.
Raising the possibility of cyberattacks by what he portrayed as free-spirited Russian patriots, Putin said hackers “are like artists” who choose their targets depending on how they feel “when they wake up in the morning.”
“If they are patriotically minded, they start making their contributions — which are right from their point of view — to the fight against those who say bad things about Russia,” he said.
All the same, Putin stuck firmly to earlier denials that no Russian state bodies or employees were involved in the hacking, something U.S. intelligence agencies have alleged. Those agencies concluded in January that Putin had directed a Russian “influence campaign” involving cyberattacks and disinformation intended to tilt the November election in Trump’s favor.
“We’re not doing this on the state level,” Putin said Thursday.
Trump has continued to dismiss the whole Russia investigation, labeling it a “Witch Hunt” in a tweet Wednesday and saying Democrats are still upset about losing the election. “The big story is the ‘unmasking and surveillance’ of people that took place during the Obama Administration,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
REGARDING SUBPOENAS
On Capitol Hill, a rift continued between Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Democrats on the panel. Nunes recused himself from the Russia investigation after he was criticized for being too close to the White House. He remains committee chairman, but Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, is now leading the investigation.
The committee issued seven subpoenas Wednesday seeking testimony and information in its investigation into
Russian activities during the election.
Four were issued to former national security adviser Flynn; the president’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen; and their respective companies.
Three were issued to the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency seeking information on requests that former officials in President Barack Obama’s administration made to unmask the identities of Americans named in intelligence reports. The requests were made by former CIA Director John Brennan, former national security adviser Susan Rice and Samantha Power, the former U.S. representative to the United Nations, according to a congressional staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said Nunes approved the unmasking subpoenas without consulting with Democrats on the committee. Trump has alleged that Obama administration officials, for political reasons, asked to know the identities of Americans whose names are concealed in intelligence documents.
“I don’t know what the chairman has in mind here again because we weren’t consulted, or why the chairman is picking these three people,” Schiff told CNN. “Susan Rice has been a perennial target for the GOP for whatever reason.”
He said Nunes recused himself from the investigation but still insists on having a final say in what subpoenas are issued in the Russia investigation. Schiff said committee rules allow Nunes to delegate that authority to Conaway. He said he hoped House Speaker Paul Ryan would intervene to make sure that happened.
A senior Republican staff member on the committee said Nunes signed the subpoenas for Flynn, Cohen and their companies, which were requested by Conaway and Schiff. He said the unmasking subpoenas are not part of the Russia investigation.
The staff member said the Democrats were informed that the unmasking subpoenas were being issued. The staff member, who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the chairman has the authority to sign off on subpoenas and that all the committee rules were followed.
Separately, Nigel Farage, the former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, criticized a published report Thursday that suggests U.S. investigators think he may be able to shed light on possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign.
Farage was responding to an article in The Guardian newspaper Thursday that said he was a “person of interest” in the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s contacts with representatives of Trump’s campaign.
The Guardian, citing unidentified sources, said Farage was not accused of wrongdoing but had “raised the interest” of the FBI because of his relationships with the Trump campaign and with Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks.
The investigators are examining whether Farage was a link between Assange and Trump advisers, including Roger Stone, who has acknowledged being in contact with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker who is thought to be an agent of Russian military intelligence.